


It's A Pound of Flesh (But It's Really a Ton)

by GiveALittleRespect



Category: Supernatural
Genre: DEAN IS A BADASS, Dean Loves Sam, Dean Makes a Deal, Dean has a kid, Dean is bisexual, Demons, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Mention of Drinking During Pregnancy, Mpreg, Sam Is In Hell But Not Forever, Season 2 AU, crossroad demons, slight mention of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25006942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiveALittleRespect/pseuds/GiveALittleRespect
Summary: Short AU set between Seasons 2 and 3, post-Sam dying. What if the crossroad demon wasn't so willing to bring Sam back, forcing Dean to work a lot harder to get his brother out of Hell?
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 18





	It's A Pound of Flesh (But It's Really a Ton)

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I decide to catch up on SPN: The Later Seasons. I write "short" fics that "won't be that long," only to have them be over ten pages in Google Docs. 
> 
> Title is taken from the song "99 Problems" by Hugo.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

No matter how many demons he tries to make deals with, nobody’s interested.

They won’t bring Sam back. 

Dean’s tempted to eat his gun every time he fails, but the burning, obsessive thought-- "What if the next one says yes?"--keeps him going. It’s pretty much the only thing that does.

He spends weeks tracking down crossroads demons, even trying to fool them with fake names and disguises. They see right through his dumb act every time and taunt him about missing his little brother. He starts asking after Sam, just to gauge how he’s doing in Hell. The answers he gets, whether they’re lies or not, are enough to make him gank the demons right there and then. 

He hunts just for the sake of getting to kill more monsters. He’s more ruthless, far less patient with people than he’d usually be, all because Sam’s not around to reel him in or call him out on his bullshit. But what the hell--he’s alone in the fucking world now. He has no one to love or care about, and no one to look after for the first time in his life. 

That freedom, as unwanted as it is, means he can sleep with whoever he wants whenever, and for years he’s been tamping down certain proclivities when it comes to men. He’s admitted to himself and Sam that he’s bi-curious, and if he’s still hot, single and ready to mingle, why not expand his horizons a little?

Turns out, guys are a whole new animal. There are times when he’s pumped the brakes pretty hard because some dude is into something he is definitely not ready for. Other times, a guy’s been ready and willing up until Dean tells him what he likes, and suddenly that’s a deal-breaker. 

Jeez. So much for the “bisexuals are easy” myth.

A few lucky times, he meets guys who are into whatever he’s into and willing to experiment. He has fun, they have fun, and there’s no awkward “Maybe we should get coffee sometime” the next morning. 

A few months after one such encounter, Dean starts feeling more run down than usual, and inexplicably nauseated every time he smells coffee or bacon. He drives by a free clinic one day and realizes that the “bug” he’s been battling might actually be an STI. He parks the car and walks in to make an appointment. What the hell, this will only take a round of antibiotics to cure. 

Except that it’s not an STI. He’s pregnant. 

He thinks there’s been a mix-up when the nurse tells him. He laughs and insists that she run the test again. So she does, and the results are the same. Dean storms out of the clinic without a word, gets in his car, and drives twenty miles over the speed limit until he pulls over to puke his guts out on the side of the road. 

Morning sickness, some Sam-sounding voice in his head echoes. Dean snarls, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. 

He tries to get a grip. One thing is for sure, he’s not having a damn baby. He’s got no home, no family, no money, nothing. This is the last thing in the world that he needs.

So he pulls himself together--barely--and drives back, demanding a pill or whatever the hell it’s going to take to make this problem go away.

But first, he has to endure an ultrasound. He agrees purely because years of hunting make him actually want to see the monster that’s trying to take over his body.

That turns out to be a mistake, because not only does it look human, but the nurse also points out that legally, he’s about a week or so too far along for an abortion. State rules or some shit. She looks sympathetic, but he ignores that. He doesn’t want pity.

He spends the next two days drinking--there’s no one around to tell him what a shit thing it is to do--and going over and over his “options.” He can’t gank the thing without dying, which would be tempting except he can’t bear the idea of reuniting with Sam in Hell and telling him that he’s not there to rescue him after all (cause no way is he going to Heaven, that’s for sure.)

He could leave it at a hospital or something. But then the kid would probably just grow up in the system, and Dean’s had enough brushes with foster care to not wish that on any kid.

He could find some people looking to adopt, but the thought of giving the kid away to civilians who couldn’t protect it from a demon like Azazel doesn’t sit well with him, either. The kid’s a Winchester, and that means being cursed. The fact is, his kid wouldn’t be safe without other hunters around.

Finally, he calls Bobby and tells him everything. He expects a reaming out like John would give him, maybe even flat-out refusal to help, but Bobby just calls him an “eedjit” and says he’ll make up the guest room. Dean can stay as long as he likes.

***

For the next month or so, Dean keeps hunting and torturing demons for information on Sam, but the hunts are getting harder because he’s so damn tired all the time. Plus, his center of gravity is changing and he falls, stumbles and gets injured more easily. He has one too many close calls and decides to take a couple weeks off, just to let his body heal.

Two weeks turn into two months, at the end of which he’s had to switch to bigger clothes (some of which are Sam’s that he couldn’t bring himself to give away.) He resigns himself to doing research for cases instead, which is kind of boring but gives him at least a small sense of purpose. 

He tries to ignore the way his body is changing, but there’s no ignoring it once the little bugger inside starts moving around. First it’s freaky, then he kind of gets used to it and starts talking to the thing, and eventually he’s telling stories late into the night when he’s trying to get Sammy Junior to settle down and stop kicking. 

He calls it “Sammy Junior” because he’s sure it’s a boy, and if he’s right, there’s no other name he’d even consider for his son. If it’s a girl...Samantha, then. Sam would love that.

Bobby doesn’t have much in the way of baby stuff, so Dean buys what he can from thrift stores and even sets up a crib in his room, near his bed. He paints devil’s traps on pretty much every surface, the memory of the last night in his house in Kansas suddenly fresh in his mind. 

That won’t happen to this kid. Sammy Junior won’t be fed demon blood or see one of his parents die in front of him.

Dean won’t let history repeat itself.

***  
Dean swears that he will never skip the condoms or any other method of birth control ever again, because making a human being is the hardest thing he’s ever done and he would never put somebody else through it. 

In spite of everything--being huge, having cankles, getting heartburn just from looking at anything fried, and needing to pee every five minutes--he doesn’t stop trying to get information on Sam. He keeps summoning demons, some of whom are cooperative only until they reveal that they’d be willing to take his baby in exchange for information, which is an instant deal-breaker.

He didn’t want the kid at first, but it’s his now. The only family he’s got. 

And if he ever sees Sam again, he wants to introduce him to his nephew. Or niece.

***

Dean’s just glad Bobby lets him use his bunker for the birth, even though he’s woefully short on supplies for such an event. Frankly, Dean doesn’t care if all they have is hot water, towels and a pair of scissors, he just wants this kid out of him. 

Sammy Junior decides to take his sweet time for about eleven hours, then comes out so fast that Dean has to catch him in his own hands to stop him falling headfirst into the concrete floor. 

At first, all Dean can do is stare at him, amazed that he’s real and perfect and has brown hair just like him--

\--but then Bobby cleans him off and the bluish tint in his face doesn’t go away. Dean realizes that he’s gasping, not crying the way a baby should, and Bobby hesitates for a long minute before he admits that he doesn’t think the kid is going to make it. 

“It’s his lungs, Dean,” he says after using an old stethoscope on the kid’s tiny chest. “They don’t sound strong. I’m sorry.”

Dean goes right into denial, holding the baby close to his chest to encourage him to breathe better, and he nods off for a while wondering if his one Hail Mary of a plan is worth trying to save his son.

When he wakes up and baby Sam is still alive and struggling to breathe, Dean makes up his mind.

He somehow gets them both upstairs, outside and into the Impala. The baby’s too fragile for the carseat Dean installed, so he buttons him up tight in his shirt and drives as carefully as he can to the nearest crossroads. 

As soon as a demon appears, he blurts out, “Save him and give me ten years, I don’t care, just heal him--”

“Oh, you again,” the demon--wearing some younger business guy’s meatsuit--groans. “What is it this time?”

Dean undoes his shirt just enough so the demon can see the baby’s head, and the guy smirks.

“Congratulations. So, ten years if I make sure the little rugrat grows up big and strong like his daddy?”

“Just fucking save him!” Dean barks. “You can take me tomorrow, I don’t give a--”

“Okay, okay, message received,” the demon says wearily. “I’ll do it, and you can have a whole year. For you, that is. He can live to a ripe old age--or not, as the case may be.”

Dean blinks. For a demon, this is surprisingly generous. “What...why a year?”

“Because you’ve been a pain in the ass for longer than that,” the demon snarks. “They’re pretty tired of you downstairs. How many of us have you killed because they wouldn’t give back that brother of yours? If we have a deal, I might just throw him in for free to get you to step off. How does that sound?”

Dean doesn’t trust it, but his kid has gone completely still against his chest, and that’s all he needs to make his decision.

“Fine! Deal!”

The demon smiles and steps closer. Dean tries not to pull away from the kiss, and then the bastard’s gone.

Baby Sam lets out a loud, full-throated cry, and Dean’s knees buckle in relief. 

“Oh, thank God,” he murmurs, adjusting the kid in his arms so he can get a better look. Sam Junior looks as pink and healthy as any baby Dean’s ever seen, and he forgets all about demons and deals for the moment, because his son is all right. He’s going to grow up and be fine, and--

\--and Dean’s going to get out of this deal, because one year will never be enough. Screw that, he’s going to see his kid graduate from college.

***

He makes it back to Bobby’s, the baby swaddled in his shirt. He hears Sam’s voice as soon as he steps through the door.

“---not a demon, see? Now where’s Dean?”

“Sam!” 

Sam--all six feet four of him, looking exactly the way he did the last time Dean saw him alive--whips around and his eyes light up. Bobby’s probably tested him with silver and holy water already, but one look at him and Dean knows it’s really his brother. Finally.

“Dean!” Sam almost runs toward him, then skids to a halt when he sees the baby. “Is that--”

Dean’s ready to collapse with exhaustion, relief, and sheer elation, so he takes a seat on the sofa. Sam’s right next to him the same second, and Dean holds out the baby in his arms. 

“Meet your nephew.” 

***

“Wow,” Sam says, after Dean’s been practically carried to bed. Baby Sammy’s had a bottle of formula and is asleep right next to Dean. “So, the whole time you were trying to get me out of Hell, you were pregnant?”

“Eh, most of the time,” Dean says smugly, even though he feels like he could sleep for a week. It’s a struggle just to keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t want to take them off of his brother or his son. “I’m a badass.”

Sam laughs quietly. “Yeah, you are. I can’t believe you didn’t stop looking for me.”

“What was I s’posed to do?” Dean grumbles. “Sit around knittin’ booties? I had to get you back, man. Nothing was gonna stop me.”

“And it clearly didn’t,” Sam says, smiling at his namesake. “But, Dean...tonight, you made a deal, didn’t you?”

Dean looks away. “Sam, we don’t have to talk about that right now. You’re back, he’s fine, I’m fine. Can’t we just be okay for a while?”

“How long did you get?”

Dean doesn’t want to say. But after everything, he owes Sam the truth.

“A year. But I’m gonna get out of it. There’s no way I’m not raising Sammy Jr, and--”

“Okay,” Sam says gently. “We’ll find a way to get you out of it.”

There’s so much more that Dean wants to ask and that Sam probably isn’t ready to talk about. But all he wants to do is enjoy having his family right here with him. Everybody’s safe, like they should be.

“I think he looks like you,” Dean sighs, tucking his arm securely around the baby. “But more handsome.”

Sam grins. “He’s got your nose.”

“Yeah,” Dean smiles, kissing his son’s head. “He’s a cutie.”

“I still can’t believe you’re a dad.”

“Believe it,” Dean murmurs, finally surrendering to the urge to sleep. He lets his head fall onto the pillow and feels Sam tug the blanket over his shoulders. 

If he can lose his brother, have a baby, and save that baby’s life all in the same year, finding a way out of one lousy deal with a demon doesn’t seem that impossible.  
They can do it. They can do anything.

End


End file.
